


Fenton, the new Asset alt. ending/deleted scene

by Misaratis



Series: Ghosts... IN SPACE [2]
Category: Danny Phantom, Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Deleted Scenes, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-19
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:13:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26548072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Misaratis/pseuds/Misaratis
Summary: What it says on the tin.This is a long deleated scene that I wrote once upon a time, before I took the original it comes from in a very different direction. I wont put too fine a point on it in the summary here, so I wont spoil the story proper to those who wish to read that. More info inside.
Series: Ghosts... IN SPACE [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1930546
Comments: 4
Kudos: 78





	Fenton, the new Asset alt. ending/deleted scene

**Author's Note:**

> So like I said, this is a deleted scene, but it's long, and I'm still quite happy with it, even if I can't use it anymore. Essentially this is the starting I had for the sequel fic I had started for Fenton, the new Asset. What I had originally planned was for Danny to actually make it back home with Shiro, and then this would be the two of them after they both crash landed on Earth in the escape pod. For that reason this can now be considered something of an alternate ending, for those of you that that may have felt you wanted something more out of the pusblished ending.
> 
> Originally, Shiro and Danny are burned pretty bad because of the bomb Ulaz planted. Shiro is pretty out of it, and by this point Haggar's experiments have taken their toll on him, so his mind is pretty bent out of shape. So when Danny comes after him, belatedly released by Ulaz, and he's in his ghost form, Shiro only halfway recognizes him. I wrote and rewrote that scene of them together in the pod so so very many times, some where Shiro is totaly out of it, others where he's lucid enough to have a conerstaion with Danny and is told told about all the ghost stuff. But nothing ever really felt right to me, nto until I changed it to what it is now.
> 
> However that said, this del. sc. still has some good stuff in it, and I think I might in my own mind adopt it as a sort of Slav-type altnerane universe version of events. I guess the poor Danny we know is in one of the realities where he didn't make it out. I guess someone there didn't organiz the cutlery like they should've.
> 
> Also it should be said that there's a bit towards the end that's only half finished, but I thought I'd leave it in beacuse it had all my personal plot notes, and a couple times I've gotten a question about my "process", in as much as I have one.
> 
> Anyway, to reiterate, THIS IS NOT CANON. Enjoy!

Shiro was aware of landing in the distant way one is aware of the waking world in the drowsy moments before sleep can be shaken off in earnest.

Except he hadn't been asleep, he'd been half comatose as he hurtled through the cold depths of space in a stolen, alien, escape pod. Lights flashed beyond his eyelids. Sound, cacophonous in both magnitude and volume, thundered in his ears. Hands and instruments prodded him and something was possibly strapped across his chest. And he was cold, far colder than he could ever remember being.

Somewhere, high above his head, Shiro was sure he heard Keith's voice.

***

" _Shut up_ ! Everybody out! _Out_!"

A door slammed.

Shiro shivered. The desert was always cold at night, he almost-

The desert.

His eyes flying open and taking in a shuddering breath, Shiro relished in the unmistakable smell of Earth. The air, the dirt, the sparse plants, he would know it anywhere. He could weep for the joy of it.

Instead he took in a lungful of dust and started coughing harshly.

"Drink this." a person above him said, helping him sit up and pressing something cool into his hands. Guiding him, the water bottle was lifted to his lips, and he drank gratefully. "Shiro?"

"Keith?" Shiro blinked at Keith through a curiously white fringe. He looked older, much older than he should look by the time Shiro came back from Kerber-

Snatches of images flashed behind Shiro's eyes, making him screw them shut in a vain attempt to block them out. They were jumbled, confused, and too hazy around their edges to discern one from the other. Fantasy from reality. Real pain from internal. However they all rang strongly with a deep, unyielding fear.

Keith started rubbing soothing circles over Shiro's back, and again lifted the bottle up. Shiro emptied it then. "Are you okay?"

It was a redundant question, they both knew, but an appreciated one nonetheless. "No." Shiro answered honestly. "But I'm much better now." More so once he could get properly warmed up, as the ice in his veins persisted.

"Says you." A thick comforter was thrown over his shoulders, and yet he still shivered. "You're cold as ice, you smell like death and you look-" Keith cut himself off, staring Shiro down with apprehension. "The shower's ready, if you'd like. And I have clean clothes."

Shiro spared a glance for himself, and the rotten clothes he was in, if they could be called that. They were so threadbare, it looked like they were more grime than fabric. He wondered idly at what point the revulsion vanished and he stopped smelling them. "A shower sounds good. Thanks."

"Can you stand?" Keith asked as he gently helped Shiro up from the cot he'd been lying in. An unexpected wave of vertigo hit him and he braced himself against a nearby table, slumping against it tiredly. "Shiro?" Keith asked with distress.

"Give me a second." he grunted at Keith, huffing with effort. His breath came in visible, frosty puffs that dissipated just beyond his nose. Why was that? Why could he see his breath?

Shiro's vision swam as the world around him tipped and doubled. Except, no, not the world. Just his hand. He had two hands, no, four, then an extra set of legs and all of a sudden a whole other person was stumbling forward and falling to the ground. And then, as if a switch had been flipped, the frost in Shiro's chest vanished in an instant.

The person on the ground sucked in a huge lungful of air, and, like Shiro, also took in a great deal of desert dust. "Water." Shiro said over the coughs, looking around for more. He didn't recognize the person, with his white hair and bizarre suit, not to mention that he literally hadn't even been there a second ago, but filling one's lungs with dust was universally painful.

Keith was fast, and had already fetched another bottle and brought it back before Shiro even finished the word. Keith had always had a remarkable talent for rolling with his punches, even when those punches, apparently, came in the form of people that defied the laws of physics. "I'm assuming you know what's happening Shiro? And why this guy literally fell out of you." Keith said seriously, but Shiro couldn't make sense of the words. Fell out? Out, as in, previously inside?

Shiro pushed the thought aside, surely he'd misheard. On the ground, the alien- person?- people weren't supposed to glow- was sitting up. Keith was helping him as he had Shiro. "Are you alri- _Danny_?" Keith asked in shock. "Is that you?"

Shiro looked closer at the person, blinking against an unfocused memory rattling around behind the fog in his mind. He couldn't fully see the person's face from this angle, as his hair fell over it. But he caught a flash of bright green between the strands. "Keith?" Danny asked, for that was indeed unmistakably Danny's voice, despite the way it was echoed around the room and sent a shiver down Shiro's spine.

Blinking back emotion, Danny's eyes searched for and found Shiro's. He looked haggard, probably as bad as Shiro himself felt, but getting a proper look at each other made them both smile. Small things, and tired, but relieved. "We made it." Danny said, something like hope in his blazing green eyes. Oddly, despite the bizarre suit and his discolorations, with that side-long smile Danny looked just like himself.

"We did." Shiro nodded. Keith's eyes flew rapidly back and forth between the two of them, calculating and worried, but Shiro couldn't bring himself to care right then.

Air left Danny in a rush, taking his will to sit up with it, leaving him to practically deflate. He laughed breathlessly, the sound made of delirious fatigue as much as joy. "Earth." he said, almost disbelievingly, with the slightest wobble to his voice. "I think I'm just gonna’... chill right here and take a nap. A nap sounds nice."

"Are you sure you-" Keith cut himself off as a bright ring of light sprung to life around Danny's waist, blinding in the dark room. Though they burned at the intensity of it, Shiro could not take his eyes off it. The sight of it dislodged the rattling memory, making his heart spike and breathing short. A wave of fear and panic slammed into Shiro like a freight train, as if it were a physical force pushing him back. Blood rushed in his ears, sounding like rolling waves and screams and a deep throated, monstrous roar. Was he the one screaming? Was that his voice? Why was he in so much pain? He had to _run_ , they had to stay _alive_ . _They needed to move_ ! He was going to _die_ , _move_ ! _MOVE_!

"Shiro!"

Shiro blinked, the world coming back to him. The still, calm desert night. The smell of Earth. His brother. Danny wasn't glowing anymore, leaving the darkness all the more deeper in its wake. "Keith?" Keith was above him, Shiro hadn't registered that he had crossed the small room, or that he himself had fallen back onto a discarded box.

Keith pursed his lips, worry wrinkling his brows together. "You should take a shower. Cool off."

Shiro wasn't in much of a state to argue, or process whatever he’d just seen. He accepted Keith's hand to pull him up and stumbled his way to the bathroom, allowing Keith to close the door behind him.

Over the sink there was a small, rectangular mirror. It was old, around the edges there were spots where the reflective surface had been eroded away, and one corner was missing entirely. In it Shiro got his first look at himself.

First his eyes went to an unfamiliar scar that bridged his cheeks together over his nose before they flickered up to a mop of bleach white hair. Shiro's lips parted just a little at the sight of himself. He looked tired. He looked gaunt. He looked like he'd been to hell and back. Was that really him? This person who seemed plagued in a way that no human should have to be. With hollow eyes and drawn features that matched the pit in Shiro’s chest.

Transfixed, he reached up to his face, trying to discern how old the stubble was if only to have something tangible to latch on to, in the absence of any fully formed memories. But then his eyes landed on to his hand, or rather, the thing that should have been his hand.

He almost lost his footing then, again.

Shiro turned the shower water to scalding. He scrubbed his skin harder than he needed to, watching with grim satisfaction as the water pooling around his feet before the drain struggled to take it all turned into a grey, soapy sludge. The puckering of scar tissue around the mechanical arm where strange alien engineering dug in to mildly inflamed flesh hurt, but he ignored it and kept scrubbing. Same as he ignored the questions he didn't have answers for, and the torrent of almost memories that pressed against his skull. Instead he focused on the water, so blisteringly hot that it left him gasping. It felt better that way.

***

Keith had moved Danny to the cot by the time Shiro got out, feeling spent and refreshed in equal measure. He wanted nothing more than to lie down and sleep a decade right then, if not for the restless energy humming in his veins. Though fresh clothes did wonders for making him feel like himself again, and he already felt steadier.

Keith and Danny looked up from where they'd been speaking in low tones with their heads bent together when Shiro walked in. Danny made an attempt at a grin, unfortunately only succeeding in looking even more strung out. Probably about as bad as Shiro looked. "All healed up?" he asked.

"Healed up?" Shiro parroted. Of all the questions he hadn't expected one like that. Did he mean the unfamiliar scar that split his face? When Shiro had seen it in the mirror it looked old.

Danny stood. "You were pretty banged up. Well, I guess we both were. Are there any injuries left?"

"I didn't notice any fresh ones." Discounting the fact that he was missing an arm, something he still hasn't quite wrapped his mind around.

Danny nodded once, sharply. "Good." He scooped up a second set of extra clothing and passed Shiro to the bathroom. He stopped, just at Shiro's side, lingering. There were words heavy on his tongue, but he chose not to say them. Instead he clapped Shiro twice on his shoulder, where metal met skin, and moved on.

When the door closed softly behind him, Keith stood. "Better?"

Shiro allowed a small smile to cross his face. "Much." His eyes drifted over Keith for what felt like the first time. He'd grown up so much. Not quite a man yet, but he was hardly the boy Shiro had left. "How long has it been?"

Keith swallowed. "Almost three years."

"Oh." was all Shiro could think to say. His voice sounded emotionless even to his own ears as he continued "So that means you're what, eighteen?"

In a second Keith crashed into Shiro, wrapping his arms around his shoulders and taking a deep, shuddering breath. "I missed you." he said into Shiro's chest, voice thick. "They said you were all dead, piloting error. But I knew you had to be alive."

Acting halfway on muscle memory, Shiro lifted his arms and squeezed back. And then, because getting to embrace Keith was suddenly bringing a wealth of overwhelming emotions, Shiro hugged all the tighter. Keith was rarely a physically emotive person, but as Shiro stood quacking against him, he thought they both probably needed this desperately. "I missed you too."

Gathering himself, Keith stepped away. His eyes were red rimmed and glassy, but he resolutely ignored it and jutted his chin out. "I'm sorry Shiro, but I was kicked out of the Garrison. When they reported you dead I couldn't-" he clenched his fists. "I couldn't be patient. I'm sorry."

"That doesn't matter Keith." Shiro dropped a hand, his actual hand, on Keith's shoulder and gave it a small squeeze. "You're alive, I'm alive. The rest doesn’t matter." Exonerated, Keith let his shoulders drop a fraction. Shiro knew from experience that this likely wasn't the end of things, but it was a start.

Beyond the little sleeping room of the shack, in the main room, there was a sudden clamour. "Hunk!" A voice, young and male, complained. "How am I supposed to listen if you keep-"

"Um, I think they're having a moment you guys." A deeper voice answered in a whisper. Not that whispering did anything, the walls were paper thin. "Maybe we should just, you know, give them some privacy?"

"That's rich." said a third voice, possibly female or possibly just prepubescent, it was hard to tell. "You were snooping through my stuff earlier, you don't get to talk about privacy."

"I was looking for candy, that's a worthy cause." From there the conversation devolved into a half whispered argument Shiro didn't care to know the exact details of.

He turned to Keith with a side-long smile. "Friends of yours?" They sounded rowdy, but that might be just the thing for Keith. People to bring him out of his shell.

Keith scoffed. "Hardly." he grumbled, crossing his arms over his chest. Shiro could have laughed at the sight. For all the growing the young man must have done, he was still Keith Kogane. Some things, it seemed, never changed. "They just butted in when I went to save you. They almost screwed everything up."

Outside, the sky was starting to lighten around the furthermost edges of the horizon. Opening the shack's back door, Shiro took a step out and filled his lungs with as much fresh air as they would take. The last time his feet had been on desert sand had been three years ago.

Two of which were nothing but a wide expanse of missing time.

Shiro passed the bike he'd left to Keith, happy to see it clean, shiny, and well loved. He walked, relishing in the wind gently lapping at his face, swaying his fringe out of his eyes. Home. Earth. It was good to be back.

He stopped when he reached a small parapet, some two dozen feet from the shack. Shiro stood there long enough for the lightning edges of the sky to spread, leaving it a grayed, blue-yellow of predawn. Above, there was a smattering of clouds rolling by lazily. The esoteric thoughts that filled his mind while walking across the platform to the ship came back to Shiro, and he wished he could go back there, to a time when he still felt like himself.

There must have been sensors of some kind on the mechanical arm, because Shiro could swear he felt the air shift around it as if it were still skin. With a certain morbid curiosity, he ran his fingers over the surface, half disgusted and half amazed by the technology. He tried summoning memories of it, but it felt like trying to grasp water. 

Shiro only looked up when he heard footsteps behind him. Danny stopped beside him, closed his eyes for a moment and breathed in deeply, a small smile playing at his lips. He looked for all the world like he was at peace.

Perhaps he was, the desert had a way of smoothing over the harsh contours of the world.

"Keith told me it's been almost three years." Shiro said as he absently turned his eyes to the horizon, made up of sharp cliffs and dunes.

Danny rest his hands in the front pockets of the black denim pants he'd been lent. The sleeves of the light gray and black baseball T had been pushed up past his elbows. They seemed like the kind of clothes Keith would have on hand. "Since?"

"Since we left."

"That long?" Danny asked, his voice and eyes taking on a hard edge. "That would make me twenty-one." A small, almost bitter laugh escaped him. "I can drink now." Shiro hummed in agreement, but said nothing. Danny rubbed a tired hand over his face, trailed it through his hair, before it settled at his neck. "I probably owe you an explanation. After everything."

Far in the distance a gust took with it a layer of sand off a red, earthy cliff. "You don't owe me anything Danny. I barely remember what happened."

"You... you don't? What's the last thing you do remember?" ha asked with sharp apprehension.

"Kerberos. After that it's all... muddled."

Danny deflated. "Oh good. Wait no, not good, obviously. I just thought it was my fault, if you had a black out."

"How would that be your fault?"

Danny kept his eyes on the distance for a long time. The sun might just be rising, Shiro thought, but it was hard to tell through the layer of detail obscuring dust always in the desert air. Through it, the farthest distance looked hazy. "When we escaped," Danny said slowly, his voice flat "we were both pretty beat up. The only way I could think of to heal us both was to... there's no way to say this without sounding insane." Danny shook his head, something like frustration making his lip curl slightly. "I overshadow you.”

The word meant little to Shiro, and Danny seemed to know this, hesitant as he was to continue. “What does that mean?”

“It’s like possession, I guess.” Danny said in a hushed tone, as if admitting something dark and best left buried deep. “I’m half ghost.”

Part of Shiro didn't believe him, because it sounded laughably absurd. _Half_ ghost? However, he was missing an arm, missing memories, and left with unfocused, nameless traumas. "Danny, this isn't the time for one of your-"

"I'm serious." He swallowed hard and looked into Shiro's eyes imploringly. " _I'm half ghost_. When I overshadow people I can use my powers through them, including healing." He glanced off again, unable to keep looking at Shiro directly. "But… people don't always remember what happens when a ghost overshadows them. I just..." the sentence hung there for a moment. "I couldn't let you die."

Shiro stared at Danny, despite the young man's staunch refusal to meet his eyes. "Okay." Half ghost, right. Weird, yes. Unexpected, also yes. But Shiro was too exhausted to bring himself to be shocked, or fearful, or whatever other reaction Danny might be expecting. And besides, he’d decided long ago that it didn’t much matter anyway.

Then, Danny did look at him. "Just okay? Your friend tells you he's been dead the whole time you've known him and was _literally possessing you_ , and all say is, okay?"

"What else is there to say?"

Danny blinked at that, alarm creeping in at the edges of his expression. "And you believe me? Don't you want me to prove it or anything?"

"Do you want to?"

Danny's hand absently gravitated to his wrist, his fingers running along his pulse point. "I don't know." he said, his voice suddenly as distant as his glassy, unseeing eyes.

His hand kept rubbing soothing circles on his wrist. Shiro couldn’t see that there was any bruising or scarification. "Are you hurt?"

"What?" Danny asked in confusion, his mind taking a second to process what his hands were doing. He dropped them. "Oh, no. I was just..." Danny worked his tongue around his mouth, looking for the right words. "The watch I had, it was a repressor, kept my powers on the D.L. As much as I hated it, I got used to wearing it."

Shiro considered what Danny had been like when they were first getting to know him, how quiet he had been in those early days. "So the Guys in White, Agent B, they were..." he was unsure of how to phrase the question he wanted to ask. Unsure if he even knew the right questions to ask.

Danny looked pensive. "That's a whole can of worms. Can we maybe just enjoy being back here, for a bit? I promise I'll tell you whatever you want to know." He kept his eyes on the horizon, and they were still clouded over with memories. "I think we both deserve that much."

This wasn't the first time Shiro could remember Danny looking as introspective as he did right then, but now he felt as though he understood. Danny had a way of looking like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. And even if he couldn't place the exact memories, Shiro felt his body burdened with enough pain to fill lifetimes.

Shiro heaved a heavy sigh. "Matt and Sam are still out there."

Worry cut deep lines between Danny's eyebrows. "That's true."

"We can't leave them there."

“No.” Danny agreed with little hesitation. “Got a plan?”

Behind them, the shack's door creaked open and closed, followed by sand and gravel crunching under footfalls. "No."

Danny hummed. "Then we’ll think of something." And that was the Danny Shiro knew, half death be damned. 

Keith appeared between them, stepping closer to Shiro to rest a warm hand on his shoulder. "It's good to have you both back."

Shiro smiled. "It's good to be back."

"So what happened out there?" he asked, eyes flickering between them. "Danny only told me a little. Where were you?" He let his hand drop back to his side.

"I wish I could tell you." Shiro gazed at the pale light of the sun, unseeing, trying to summon any coherent memory he could. "My head's still pretty scrambled. There was an alien ship-"

"Several." Danny cut in. He had his face turned away from them. "We were prisoners, and they moved us around a lot. Honestly, it's probably for the best that you don't remember. I wouldn't try to go digging those memories up."

On that somber note, Shiro turned to Keith. He wasn't sure if he agreed with Danny or not, it didn't sit well with him tho have such a significant empty pit in his mind, but it was something he could consider later. Instead, he focused on a small detail that had been nagging him. "How did you know to come save us when we crashed?"

Keith hesitated, but only for a moment. "You should... come see this."

Keith led them back to the shack, taking them to the main room, where Shiro got his first look at the 'friends' Keith had. Immediately his eyes went to the smallest one, still wearing Matt's false glasses. He remembered Matt telling him how he got them set with non-prescription glass, so he could fool Katie after his correction surgery.

And here she was. Somehow Shiro wasn't surprised that she had someone managed to get herself involved with whatever rescue mission Keith had executed. All the Holts were resilient and too smart for their own good, as a general rule. She couldn't be older than Matt and Shiro had been when they first met, years ago, at the start of their training in the Garrison.

He didn't recognize the largest of them, but the last did seem familiar. His face matched that of a certain hot shot cadet vying for the piloting program that probably had been on one of the many tours of the Garrison at one point or another. Shiro couldn't help but smile at them, all young and vibrant and ignorant of true cruelties.

The almost familiar one- what was his name, Lucas? Lance? Liam?- immediately jumped out of his chair the moment he saw Shiro and Danny. "Waoh! Stop, who is that?" he exclaimed, pointing a finger at Danny. "And how did he get here? Did the Garrison find us out here?" he tossed his head over his shoulders wildly, as if the Garrison was likely to crash through the window and door as if summoned.

Katie readjusted her glasses, her keen eyes going between Danny and Shiro. "You were on the Kerberos mission too, weren't you? Daniel Fenton? Did anyone else make it back?"

Shiro's heart clenched at the question. Danny's too, by the look he sent Shiro's way.

"Are we just ignoring the fact that he just materialized out of nothing? You were _not_ there when we rescued Shiro."

Never one to waste time, Keith stepped up to the shack's far wall, ripping a sheet down to reveal a web of lines, documents, pictures, and hand written notes. There was a cork board under it all somewhere, peaking through the dense layers of paper, but the network of information Keith had assembled must have outgrown the board somewhere along the way and now covered the entire wall. It was impressive, if not a symptom of Keith's obsessive tendencies.

Keith's friend dropped whatever suspicions he had of Danny as Keith started explaining how he'd stumbled across some energy field in the desert. Shiro wasn't sure how much of he believed, even when Hunk, as he was introduced by 'Pidge', fashioned what he dubbed a 'Voltron Geiger counter'.

It all happened so fast. Somehow, within the hour, Shiro found himself swept up on a conspiracy theory misadventure to a nearby cave system. While he was tired, so unbelievably exhausted, there was something wonderful about getting to do something frivolous on Earth again.

It wasn't really until they were walking through the dark, cool caves that Shiro started feeling dread creep up his spine. Next to him, Danny gasped audibly, and Shiro turned just in time to see a puff of frosty breath dissipate in front of him. Instantly, he stood on edge.

"These are the lion carvings I was telling you about." Keith explained and they spread out somewhat, each of them staring in awe at the strange, vaguely indigenous resembling, markings. "They're everywhere around here."

"There's something going on here. It's dangerous for you all." Danny said suddenly. And it was the 'for you' part that had Shiro worried. "You all need to-" he said, before he was cut off. Without warning the carvings around them lit up in bright, faintly blue, light. Lance stumbled back from where he had been taking a close look at one, and mumbling to himself, with surprise.

Keith's eyes zoomed around the cave. "They've never done that before." As if on cue the ground cracked and crumbled, disintegrating under their weight before they had a chance to register what had happened. They were sent careening down a steep slope and were spit out inside a huge subterranean cavern, splashing as they landed ungracefully in a shallow reservoir.

Lance was the first to sit up, his eyes going wide as he took in the original inhabitant of the cavern. "They _are_ everywhere."

Pidge got up and shook off the water as best she could, something of a challenge, considering the heavy pack of equipment she carried. "Is this it? Is this the Voltron?"

"It must be." Shiro said, standing along with the others. Looking up at the massive mechanical lion, trapped under some sort of pale blue dome made up of glowing hexagons, it was impossible to deny the waves of power that rolled off it, he'd never seen anything like it.

Except... something in the pattern struck him, though he couldn't place the feeling. He supposed, if his memories were never to be recovered, he might have to resign himself to living in a perpetual state of half formed recollection forever sitting on the tip of his tongue.

Keith was staring at it with what could only be the same sense of awe that Shiro felt. "This is what's been causing all this crazy energy out here." It occurred to him that Keith had been looking for this for months upon months, and that finally seeing it must come with vindication.

"It's quintessence." Danny whispered, perhaps more to himself than anyone else. Eyes on the lion, he started walking towards it.

Pidge quirked an eyebrow, gaze roaming over the force field. "What's that?"

"It's what the Galra called the energy they used. And it's not electricity, if that's your next question. It's something different." Danny finished, catching Shiro's eye.

Which meant, if he understood that look correctly, Danny meant to say that this lion was like him. Or he was like it. They were made of the same stuff. He wished Matt was with them, out of anyone his brilliant mind would be able to make sense of things.

Danny and Keith were hurrying towards the lion, already several paces ahead. "Looks like there's a forcefield around it." Keith mumbled to himself.

As the rest of them made to catch up, Lance started zig zagging back and forth. "Does anyone else get the feeling this is staring at them?"

Shiro looked into the eyes of the lion. They were bright yellow, and seemed to glow with their own light, but otherwise were static. "Hmm, no."

"Yeah. The eyes are totally following me." Lance continued, as if Shiro hadn't spoken.

Getting closer, Shiro could see that the force field's energy swirled and twisted around itself, like smoke. When Keith put his hands on it, the energy coalesced around the points of contact before rippling out. "I wonder how we get through this."

Danny smoothed a hand over the surface as well. “We could ask her to lift it.”

“Her?”

Lance stepped up to it, his lips pursed in idle consideration. "Maybe you just have to knock." And he did just that.

Suddenly, the force field broke apart, hexagon by hexagon, and disappeared as markings along the bottom of the cavern lit up like the carvings had. Shiro's breath hitched as sensation flooded his mind, visions resolving into five magnificent Lions resolving it. He felt like he was flying, zooming through empty space at impossible speeds. The sensation twisted and turned in his mind, the Lions caming together to form what could only be Voltron.

"Uh," Lance stammered "did everyone just see that?"

Through their individual exclamations, Shiro took a step forward. Vague memories stirred, of yellow eyes and voices asking where the Blue Lion of Voltron was, insisting that he knew. "This is what they're looking for." They were right, it had been on Earth all along.

They yelped in surprise when the Lion suddenly moved, opening its mouth to roar before bringing its head down and allowing a ramp to extend, almost invitingly. Lance walked up without a second glance, followed closely by Danny, then Keith. Right, so they were just walking into the waiting maw of a mechanical predator. Obviously only good things could come from that.

Shiro was surprised to find the interior of the head was not unlike a cockpit. Lance was seated in the pilot's chair already, him and Danny looking around the holographic displays with interest. To the right there was a three dimensional star map showing the Milky Way, to the left what looked like vitals and equipment levels, and as they filed in, the main display lit up, showing the cavern and reservoir beyond the Lion's eyes. As it focused, Lance grinned, a self assured chuckle escaping him. "Alright! Very nice!"

"Okay, guys, I- I feel the need to point out, just so that we're all, y'know, _aware_." Hunk stammered, his eyes bouncing all around the cockpit before returning to any of them. "We are in some kind of futuristic alien cat head right now."

Lance wasn't listening however. His expression went lax for a second before snapping back, his attention suddenly hyper focused. "Whoa, did you guys just hear that?"

"Hear what?" Keith half-snapped.

"I think it's talking to me."

Danny leaned in, over Pidge's head, his face lit up like Shiro could only remember seeing if he was talking about stars or space. "I heard it." he said as a bright smile grew. "Go on, do what she says." Danny demanded, a certain impatience and anticipation on him.

Together, they studied the controls briefly, though it was Lance that decided on the seemingly arbitrary button sequence. He chose a few on the central panel, already pressing them before Shiro had a chance to say, stop, wait, maybe we should rethink messing with alien tech we know nothing about?

Shiro threw a tense arm around the back of the chair as the cockpit suddenly rocked back. Outside they could hear another roar that echoed around the cavern. It sounded different... Shiro almost couldn't believe it, but he would swear that the ship sounded... exhilarated. If he had to put a word on it.

Lance and Danny certainly were. "Okay. Got it." Lance said, his hands finding a quick home on the flight controls on either side of the pilot's chair. Now let's try this!" he exclaimed, pumping the controls forward sharply.

Between one second and the next, the 'futuristic alien cat' blasted it's way through tons upon tons of dense rock and was jumping into the air. Shiro was yelling, pretty much all of them were yelling, it was like some sort of sickening rollercoaster that had no end in sight. For too many seconds Shiro lost his sense of up and down, and it was all he could to remain standing.

Next to him, Keith was yelling something disparaging at Lance. But it was lost as the lion gave a series of hard lurches- was it jumping? Were they on the ground? Was it flying in loops?- making Hunk slump over, looking green. With a wide smile, Lance yelled over the thunderous engines "Isn't this awesome?"

"Make it stop. Make it stop!" Hunk gasped.

"I'm not making it do anything! It's like it's on autopilot!"

Then Danny leaned forward, planted on his feet with his arms free like the unbridled, euphoric frenzy of a flight meant absolutely nothing to him. His eyes shone with green light as much as with his own exaltation. "Take us up!" he yelled, into Lance's ear, smiling so wide it looked ready to split his face. "Let's see how fast we can fly!" Shiro's heart clenched, because he didn't think he could take the Lion going any faster. Part of him very much wanted to throttle Danny for even mentioning it.

"You don't need to tell me twice." Lance answered in kind, making quick work of pulling the controls up, tight to his chest. It took no time at all for the Lion to break the cloud cover, spinning and twisting in the sunshine with the sort of beatific grace and freedom most can only dream of.

"Where are you going?" Keith demanded roughly from his place hunched over the headrest.

"I just said it's on autopilot!" A red light started flashing on the dashboard, to the far left. "It says there's an alien ship approaching Earth. I think we're supposed to stop it."

"What did it say, _exactly_?" Pidge deadpanned.

Lance took a moment to blink. "Well it's not like it's saying words. It's more like feeding ideas into my brain, kind of. Danny, you can hear it too. You explain it."

"No you... explained it pretty well. It's like she communicates through instinct."

Hunk was looking at the two of them as if they were crazy. "Well if this thing is the weapon they're coming for, why don't we just like, I don't know, give it to them? Maybe they'll leave us alone." Then, as an afterthought, he addressed the ceiling "Sorry Lion, nothing personal."

Shiro understood Hunk's fear, he was barely keeping up with what was going on himself. However despite all the insanity swirling around their heads, and with the fog in Shiro's memories, one, singularly important fact, broke through. "You don't understand." he all but growled, to the group, to Hunk, possibly to the Lion. "These monsters spread like a plague throughout the galaxy, destroying everything in their path. There's no bargaining with them, they won't stop until everything is dead." He glanced at Danny out of the corner of his eye, realizing belatedly that 'dead' had perhaps been a poor choice of words. He was grim and ashen, but was nodding along nonetheless with Shiro's outburst.

"Oh, never mind then." Hunk stammered, looking chastised.

Outside, the Blue Lion pressed forward, and before any of them knew it, they'd already broken out of the Earth's atmosphere. It shocked Shiro, how little time it had taken to get out into the void. Especially considering how all of them, save Lance, were still standing, apparently unaffected by the intense g-force exerted on a person to break through gravity. Though, considering the fact that he was standing inside a magical, alien Lion-shaped spaceship with a half ghost and a bunch of teenagers, perhaps anything was possible.

Stars twinkled around them in every direction. Earth, the one place Shiro had been longing for so desperately, for three years, drifted away, shrinking smaller and smaller as they shot past planets, moons, and asteroids. Lights and scales flashed on the dashboard, giving them probably vital information in a language they couldn't understand. Lance readjusted his grip on the controls, the skin over his knuckles starting to turn white.

In a second, something large and dark sped towards them at an inconceivable speed. Shiro only realized what it was when it came to an abrupt halt directly in front of them. His breath caught at the sight of it, his stomach dropping to his feet in an instant.

"Holy crow!" Hunk exclaimed next to him, though Shiro paid him little mind over the ringing in his ears. "Is that really an alien ship?"

It was dotted with red lights, crawling with Galra. It was as if Shiro could feel every one of them, staring at them in their little Lion. "They found us." Had they been followed? Was he and Danny responsible for attracting Galra all the way to Earth?

Without warning, countless blasters that dotted the ship's surface started shooting bright, piercing lasers in their direction. They had so many that they weren't even aiming properly, probably assuming one, at some point, would hit.

"We've got to get it out of here!" Pidge yelled, fear lacing her words.

Lance punched forward "Hang on!" The Lion gave another great lurch, the back thrusters blazing to life and sending them shooting in to space.

Shiro gripped on anything he could as the Lion twisted and curved around the lasers.

L "Alright. Okay, I think I know what to do."

P "Be careful man! This isn't a simulator!"

L "Well that's good. I always wreck the simulator."

H "Oh no!"

K "They're gaining on us!"

L "It's weird, they're trying to shoot us. They're just chasing."

D pause, looking split "I think I have an idea, but you all have to promise not to freak out."

H "What do you mean?” supes desperate, basically the hunk we know and love. Danny goes to the back of the ship but Shiro doesnt look, too busy freaking out over G. “Why would we freak out- _Oh my God_!" Blue and co. goes invisible "What is happening? What is going on? How are you doing that?"

D "I told you not to freak out."

K "Are we invisible?"

P "Where are we?"

S "We're on the edge of the solar system. There's Kerberos."

P "It takes months for our ship's to get out this far. We got out here in five seconds."

K "What is that?"

L "Uh, this may seem crazy, but I think the Lion wants us to go through there."

D has returned to the front now that theve shaken the G "Listen to the Lion, we need to go through. If that's what I think it is, it's from a friend." lol, Dany thinks its one of clockworks portals.

S "Where does it go?" Ok bro, leap of faith but i guess i trust you.

D "If I'm right, it'll take us to the exact time and place we need to be." imploring expression

S "And if you're wrong?" bc this _is_ a big leap of faith

D "I... really hope I'm right."

L “Shiro, you're the senior officer here. What should we do?"

S "Whatever's happening here, I trust Danny's judgment." kinda bc hes the only person that knows whats up, along with blue, atm. Even if hes wrong but thay dont know that "And the lion knows more than we do. But we're a team now, we should decide together."

L "Alright. I guess we're all ditching class tomorrow."

Big ol description of going through the portal. Dannys probs freaking out a little bc it doesnt look/feel(?) right but i dunno if shiro should even notice that. Its a bumpy ride. But like also allura and coran werent even awake to open the portal, ad the lions certainly cant open wormholes, so maybe it _was_ clockwork. He would totally do something like that and like never help them again even though he totally could.

"Whoa. That was..."

H throws up "So sorry." stiff upper lip buddy, youre the fan favorite

P adjusts glasses "I'm just surprised it took this long."

D walkes up to the front of blue to get a proper good look at Altea (or is the planet theyre on Arusia or something? Look that up) "This... Isn't what I was expecting."

S suddenly alarmed bc this is _so not the time Danny_ "It's not?" You were wrong?

D "No." checking his ghost sense, though how to describe that from S POV? "That portal... it didn't feel like they normally do."

L "Hold up dude, you've been through one of those before?"

D "I thought I had, but I guess this one was a different kind."

S "Do you recognize where we are?" 

D "No." (no again? revise?) D is pensive, consulting the starmap "The prison ship's weren't exactly known for being great for sight-seeing. Windows weren't really a thing. I have no idea where we are." lil baby sarcasm, bc D hasnt made a pun yet.

K "We must be a long, long way from Earth." Keith, babe, darling. We all know yu just wanna meet aliens.

L "The Lion seems to want to go to this planet. I think... I think it's going home."

Home indeed. Home turned out to be an alien castle with a comatose Princess and a dignitary. Home turned out to be the resting place for the Black Lion, a responsibility that was thrust on to Shiro as readily as the other Lions were on to the others.

They were just kids, and Shiro saw that more clearly than ever, while traveling with Katie to the retrieve the Green Lion, and listening to the way she rambled a steady stream of worry. Everything from the Lion not responding to her, to the sudden, crippling fear that there might not be foot pedals, and what was she supposed to do then? Leave it up to a Holt to, even on what amounted to a relaxing gondola ride through a rich tropical paradise, to find something to be concerned over. Even so, Shiro couldn’t help but enjoy himself. There was so much color here, so much life. The sun of this planet was warm on his skin, and whatever animals lived there squawked happily beyond the thick flora.

"Pidge rambles when she's nervous." Matt had once said to him while they watched Keith fly through a simulation that, under normal circumstances, wouldn't be assigned to someone his age. But Shiro had managed to convince Professor Sutherland that he could handle it. "And she's pouty when she's frustrated. These days I feel like she's yo-yoing between the two."

"She's probably just worried about you. The Kerberos mission is pioneering after all. And if she's anything like you or your Dad, then she's too smart not to worry about things the rest of us don't even consider."

"Think I'm smart, do you?" Matt laughed, tossing his hair, which was really too short to toss but that never stopped him from making a valiant effort. "Should Adam be worried?"

"About you? Doubt it."

Turning his eyes back to the simulation, Matt's face softened in the way it often did when speaking about his little sister. "Managed to bribe her with studying, did I tell you that?"

"Really?" For only a second Shiro wondered how that would work, but then he remembered how insatiably curious the Holts were, and then it wasn't that difficult to picture. "You'll have to teach me how to do that. Might work with Keith."

"I'm not even sure how I did it. I think it might only work on people that've been on the receiving end of Dad's 'do something great' speech."

Shiro smiled, coming back to himself and noticing all over again how Pidge had cut her hair to look just like her brother's. She hadn't said anything beyond vague comments about his other crew members, and Shiro wondered then if she had convinced herself that neither he nor Danny could recognize the obvious family resemblance.

"You're rambling." he chuckled. The sloth resembling alien that was kind enough to escort them to the Green Lion on his (her?) gondola stood between them, pushing them through the waters, made a sound equivalent to a chuckle. Pidge hunched her shoulders, dismay written all over har face as she turned it away from both Shiro and the sloth alien. "Listen, our Commander on the Kerveros mission is the smartest man I ever met," Is, because he had to believe Sam was still alive. Shiro refused to even contemplate 'was'. "and he always said, 'if you get too worried about what could go wrong, you might miss a chance to do something great'."

Shiro supposed that would have to do for now. Pidge would tell him and their new, rag tag team about her true identity when she was ready. If friendship with Danny had taught him anything, it was patience for when people were ready to embrace themselves.

Upon returning to the castle, Shiro was glad all over again for the peaceful, and downright relaxing, mission he and Pidge enjoyed, retrieving Green. Lance and Hunk had stumbled right into a battle and made it out by the skin of their teeth and with a whole lot of luck. All the while Danny and Keith seemed to be driving each other up the Castle walls, waiting for the rest of them to return.

With Red in Galran hands, Shiro knew Keith would be likely to give in to his anxious, fidgeting habits, considering his constant need for immediate action. He'd never been great with the notion of 'sit tight and wait it out'. Shiro had hoped that leaving Danny with him while the rest of them went off, he could act as a balm to Keith's fire. In all the years he'd known Danny, though jovial and quick with a joke, he had been reserved. Calm. Calculating and clever when he needed to be.

What he hadn't counted on was something being awakened in Danny now that he could... do his ghost thing. Shiro still didn't quite get it, but there were bigger things to worry about.

Danny, as it turned out, had just as much of a reckless streak as Keith did. And so they'd been driving each other up the walls. They had all only just met the Alteans, and Shiro would be lying if he said there wasn't some small bit of him that resented the Princess for the ease in which she assigned life threatening posts in an intergalactic war to teenagers. But he did feel sorry for them, having to deal with Keith and Danny all on their own.


End file.
